Housekeeping
(1987)

• Stars: Christine Lahti
• Available on Video: Yes

Summary:

Forsyth's perspective:

"I suppose there are any number of ways you can approach a novel in terms of adapting it but I simply wanted to make a promotional movie for the book, so I was quite wilfully slavish to the book. I didn't want to even have an attitude to the book or use it as raw material."

-- from "The List", December 1987

"I fell in love with the book so much I wanted to possess it. It was an act of larceny ... To my mind the entertainment was in the idea of these two girls, in a situation where they had no choice, latching on to whatever was given to them and all that was given to them was this completely inadequate loon. Like these ducks when they come out of the egg -- the first thing they see, they love it and they follow it about. The fun in the situation for me was in standing back from it and seeing these completely inadequate people forced upon each other. She turns up for a long weekend, the old aunts leg it out the door and Sylvie's left with the kids. All these things strike me as being funny. I think that's humour and I suppose I'm in serious trouble if nobody else thinks that."

-- from Alan Hunter's article "Bill Forsyth: The Imperfect Anarchist"

Credits